On the great road from London to West Chester, we find, at the principal
inns, the coats of arms of several lord lieutenants of Ireland, framed,
and hung up in the best rooms. At the bottom of these armorial pictures
(as I may call them) is a full display of all the titles of the party,
together with the date of the year when each viceroyship commenced. I
have often inquired the reason of this custom, but never could procure a
satisfactory answer. I do not reprobate the idea of this relique of
ancient dignity, as these heraldic monuments were doubtless intended to
operate as public evidences of the passage of each lord-deputy to his
delegated government. They now seem only to be preserved for the
gratification of the vanity of the capital innkeepers, by showing to
humble travellers that such and such lord lieutenants did them the
honour to stop at their houses; and yet I will not say, but that for
half-a-crown handsomely offered to his excellency’s gentleman, they
might likewise become part of the furniture of every ale-house in
Dunstable.
After fruitless inquiry, accident furnished me with the ground of this
custom, which now only serves to excite a little transitory curiosity.
Having occasion to look into sir Dudley Digge’s “Complete Ambassador,”
published in 1654, I was obliged to the editor for a solution, who, in
the preface, (signed A. H.,) speaking of the reserve of the English
ambassadors, in not making public their negotiations, has this
observation--“We have hardly any notion of them but by their arms, which
are hung up in inns where they passed.”
This paragraph at once accounts for the point before us, and is
sufficient, at the same time, to show that the custom was anciently, and
even in the seventeenth century, common to every ambassador, though it
now only survives with those who go in the greater and more elevated
line of royal representation to Ireland.